| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/05/2013 : 16:42:53
You'll probably read that well-worn phrase "a little gem" attached to this film and yes, it is.
Shot brilliantly in black and white by Phedon Papamichael, Alexander Payne's film from Bob Nelson's original script avoids pretension, offering us a ride on a journey that may feel familiar, but is wholly original.
Payne has always side-stepped the Hollywood expectation, and this film feels almost French in its deceptive simplicity - some of the music has a continental tinge, too.
It's at once about nothing at all and every nuance of the human experience - and, unlike the more recent populist Shades of Grey, this visual spectrum proves a genuine revelation.
The core of the story concerns a decrepit and ageing Bruce Dern as the paterfamilias of a nothing special mid-western family. As all the film trailers have told us, this old geezer - cozily alcohol dependent, grumpy as you like, smarter than anyone wants him to be - believes he has won a million bucks. And damn it, he's going to get it!
Although friends and family tell him it's a marketing scam, he sets out across several states to claim his prize.
Whether he gets it or not is never the point. We become witness to his journey, to his assessment of a life lived, not always very wisely, and none too well, either. His moments of self-realization meld beautifully with those of his self-delusion.
What keeps us hooked is the extraordinary performance of Dern, a physical tour de force as well as an emotional one. You'll be lucky indeed to see such unspoken volumes this year, just in the way he looks through empty rooms, or at fields, or gravestones while others prattle.
Mostly, those others do provide very fine support indeed. There's a welcome ensemble feeling throughout, but special mention must be made of Will Forte as his younger son, quietly eager to discover his taciturn dad; Stacy Keach as a fair-weather friend; and Bob Odenkirk as the safe son.
It's a film about human connections and missed chances. It's also very very funny, on the complete opposite end of the humor scale from Jackass.
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| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| randall |
Posted - 03/02/2014 : 12:20:53
I agree with most of the above, except I accepted this as a quiet little "indie" that somehow got treated like a much bigger deal, thanks to Payne's celebrity among the cognoscenti and the sentimentality of a career-capping (and beautifully written) role for Dern. (Though not quite enough sentimentality to get him an Oscar in a few hours, I predict.)
The b&w cinematography isn't even an issue as you observe the flat, bleak Midwestern plains in winter: as Payne himself has said, the locations look black and white in real life.
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| Sludge |
Posted - 03/02/2014 : 07:11:49
I'm very much on the same page as Baftababe.
Possibly Bruce Dern's finest performance with a surprisingly well polished first time script by Bob Nelson. Just seconds into it, the question of B&W becomes "why would you have done it any other way?" This isn't your grandfather's grainy stock, nor the criminality of post-production retro-grain, but a sharp canvass on which to linger on everything from the midwestern big sky to the protagonist's stocky nephews.
Don't let this one get away from you.
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